Read: Anne McCaffrey - Dragonsong

I hadn't read this book in many years - I had the latter two books of the trilogy in my collection, but hadn't found this one for sale. But after a trip to the Dark Carnival bookstore in Oakland, California, my set is complete. It was a great re-read on the plane trip to Hawaii yesterday - it's an endearing survival story, both in terms of staying safe in a hostile landscape, and keeping a love of music alive in a hostile culture. The dragons are almost incidental!

Read: Maureen Corrigan - Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading, Finding and Losing Myself in Books

A more serious book than you might guess from the somewhat flippant title. Maureen Corrigan writes about her rewarding career reviewing books and teaching literature, her love of different book genres (particularly detective stories) and her ambivalence about her experience in getting a PhD in English Lit. A very open, honest examination of everything she reads and does - it can't be easy to write a memoir that's as blunt in self-assessment as this.

Interesting side note for medical artists: she had a part time job at the Mutter Museum of medical curiosities in Philadelphia.

Books she wrote about that I now want to read: Kingsley Amis's "Lucky Jim" (the funniest book she's ever read); mysteries by Dorothy L. Sayers.

Read: Sarah Waters - The Night Watch

I had this book on my list as a result of reading Connie Willis' "Blakcout" and "All Clear", similarly set in London during WWII. I probably shouldn't have read it so soon after Connie Willis - she's a hard act to follow. "The Night Watch" was a decent historical novel, but didn't have the same intensity as Willis. I have, however, read that this was not Sarah Waters' best novel, so I may well give some of her others a try.